Month: December 2014

It’s Christmas morning, and this is my 8th Christmas in the van now. I decided to leave Bamburgh and come north and I am now sitting in view of the Forth bridge in Fife. I hope this weekend to get some photos of the new bridge construction before moving to Falkirk for more photos of the wheel.

The van’s old problem of non-starting is back again *sigh* I turn the key and it flat out refuses to start. I can try continually and it may or may not start eventually, and over the years there’s been no clue as to what causes it. However my fire works great, the fridge appears to be working and at least I am moving again.

I installed my solar panels 17 weeks ago today. 3 x 100 watt Biard panels on the roof.
Normally I’d recharge batteries with the gennie once every 3 days and it costs a tenner in petrol for the gennie each time.
So, 17 weeks is 119 days, that’s 40 times I’d have charged the batteries in that period, meaning, £400 of petrol.
However with having the panels, I’ve only had to charge the batteries using the gennie 5 times in that period, that’s £50. So I’ve saved £350 in petrol in that time.
The panels and all the associated bits cost just under £700, so in that 17 weeks I’ve already saved half the cost of them.
Wow is all I can say.

Well I got booked in at G C Autos at Gateshead and he replaced all the cables and checked the braking system out all for £94.
I’m chuffed to bits now as they actually work and it proves how bad they were because the foot brake works better too. I may fit vented discs at some point as I’ve found some to fit but I’ll do that as I need it.